The Dates of Wrath

The astute will notice – in fact, anyone on the twitchy end of a vegetative state will notice – that it’s been a fucking long time since anyone posted on here.

It’s that abrupt, Mary Celeste end of transmission that happens on the interwebs. Usually, an indication that the oh-well-it-was-good-while-it-lasted blogdeath that we’re all familiar with has finally arrived.

Well hold on Captain Impatient, because there is something of a problem. The problem is that this humble organ depends utterly on the fragile relationship status of your immodest and obnoxious authors.

Where have you been? I was worried sick

Well for me, the unthinkable happened.

After a long stretch of hard dating – I think prison metaphors are appropriate – in the summer of 2010 I met someone. Someone with a dangerous level of awesome. Someone who generated the alternating nausea and heart-rocketry of a new love. Someone for whom, without regret, you consider shrugging off those online profiles and doing real life couple stuff. Inconceivable!

So that happened. Now as you might imagine, this is terrible for new DoW content.

Fresh, rosy-faced beaus rarely administer bonus BJs when you enthusiastically rub their nose in the filthy exploits that led you to them, however hilariously sketched. Painting yourself as a jaded, veteran online-dater really spunks in the hummus of new romance.

Expertise in profile-clicking is a bit like expertise in cat rape; it’s just not cool. You keep it quiet.

Hence the silence, and understandable lack of new dates to pick over.

And what of my learned colleague Gaga? My understanding is that it was just time for a break from the fun and misery of the 2010 date-a-thon. With other, you know, life-stuff going on, Gaga took what I like to think of as an extended shagbatical.

(Mind you that’s only what she tells me; in reality, who can imagine the glittering trail of sticky tequila-bottle shards and shredded hearts left in her mercurial wake.)

Did you get dumped? You totally did. LOL

Shut it. As it happened, December brought a bunch of complications and it became pretty evident that my 2010 romance wasn’t going to make it through the new year.

As Mark Twain wrote, ‘Shit happens. No wait, don’t publish that until 2010′. The relationship came to an amicable, still-friends end, and here we are again.

Cry me a river. It’s 2011, where’s my action?

You’re right, let’s get back to you. OK. It’s a new year, which is a good time to talk about expectations.

When you add all the bits of time together, I’ve been dating for maybe three years. We can start to do some maths. After some furious number-crunching with pen, paper and Speak-n-Spell, I’ve arrived at a magic number.

It turns out that – assuming you give it some decent effort, and are not DOING IT WRONG – you will meet, on average, one highly suitable person per year.

You are, as they say, shitting me

That sounds pretty abysmal, right? Turns out, it’s not.

By ‘suitable,’ I mean the holy-shit-exciting, this-could-be-it matchup that – with appropriate care, and careful footsteps – could lead somewhere that transforms your life. Those opportunities arrive at what might be described as a fucking relaxed pace.

The key thing is: that sporadic pace doesn’t mean that the times in between are a waste, or boring. On the contrary, all those meetings are fizzing with possibility; at least to begin with.

In the end, you will know when you’ve hit your year’s jackpot. Typically:

• You are past date ten. Ten!
• Nothing bar-story-weird has happened.
• You are seriously considering the arduous task of going through your dating subscriptions and turning them all off.

That last one is the real boot up the erse. It’s your time! Don’t be single for a while.

One thing though: for fuck’s sake don’t mess with your facebook status. Not until month nine at least.

Milky Bars™ are on me: a postscript

Briefly, I’d like to unironically high-five the not-insignificant number of lovely people who contacted us to stop pissing about and get writing again, not least the noble Toast from the very fine Wed or Dead.

Thank you for your support: you are sexual tyrannosaurs of the most fearsome magnitude.